voices in my head
by frances janvier
Summary: troy returns to east high school with a dream.


**Here I am, nearly two years since I last wrote fanfic, and of course, it's a High School Musical fic. I'm sorry.**

**Written for the Caesar's Palace June Monthly Oneshot Contest. Prompt: **"When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." — Alexander Graham Bell

* * *

Troy Bolton had never been a quitter.

It was why he had saved up his meager salary for years upon years to make the trip. No matter how delusional they called him, or how many people scoffed at his dreams, he never took his eyes off of the prize. All of his life's work was culminating in that very instant, at the ripe age of eighty.

Squinting his eyes shut and gasping for air, Troy heaved open the doors of Albuquerque's East High School.

He limped forward with the assist of a crimson cane, but he was instantly engulfed in a sea of incessant teenage chatter. Even with his hearing not what it used to be, he thought he heard the news about how Stacy's mother was ending a polyamorous affair with Jess's boyfriend from West High. _These kids and their newfangled drama,_ Troy thought with a smile. Some kids passing by gave him strange glances, but it wasn't like there were laws against eighty-year-olds wearing Wildcats jerseys and emo haircuts. Also, it wasn't his fault there had yet to be a better haircut invented.

The fluorescent lights had somehow gotten even brighter and harsher in the years since. Everybody was bathed in an almost-holy glow, and Troy had missed galavanting around with angels.

There was no time to dilly-dally, however. Troy had come to Albuquerque with a singular mission, and he had to get his head back in the game, damn it.

Nonetheless, passing by the doors to the auditorium flooded him with memories. It was an audition in that very auditorium that had changed the course of his entire life. He could still hear the voices singing in harmony that lived in his heart ever since. One of the voices kept singing above the others for an inexplicable amount of time. He hadn't heard that voice in decades, but as the auditorium door swung open, it struck him.

"Sharpay?" he croaked out, stopped in his tracks at the old lady with the platinum blonde hair in front of him. If she were his former classmate, she was surprisingly agile for her age. Then again, Sharpay had always been gleaming from her endless ambition. Why would she be back at East High?

The lady stopped in the middle of a stream of students and looked around for the source of the voice.

Her jaw dropped, and she couldn't help letting out a sharp laugh before regaining her composure. "That's Ms. Evans for you, young sir," she said, a remarkably bright smile on her face.

Troy grinned a smile of comparatively yellow and crooked teeth. His heart was still pitter-pattering about his mission, but now that he knew Sharpay was still up and going, he didn't have to worry as much.

Sharpay was the first one to endeavor for an awkward embrace that Troy pulled away from a little too quickly. The old classmates stood there in a world too big for them, and yet still the only place where they belonged. They stood there, staring at each other, drinking in the other's inevitable wrinkles.

"Long time no see, eh? How have the years been?" Troy asked, still staring.

Sharpay let out another miniscule laugh, which sounded more like all the air slipping out of her body. "Well, after high school, I somehow kept up with all of that ridiculous high school-level drama. I don't know how I ever had the energy. But after college, I went through the well-worn path of every wannabe New York City actor. I thought I could succeed where everyone else had failed, buoyed with confidence from my parents' money, but blew through it all within ten years and had to move back home in disgrace."

Her shoulders slouched a little as she continued her story. "Then, I worked at that old country club from our high school days, but their management was ridiculously corrupt, and they shut down. Finally, Ms. Darbus—remember her?—reached out to say she was retiring, and so here I am, way too many years later, teaching high schoolers the magic of the musicale," she said with the pronunciation of Ms. Darbus and a mock-curtsy.

"Enough about me, though. Nobody's heard from you in ages, Troy. What brings you back to East High?"

Troy hesitated. His entire life had hinged on this trip, but he wasn't about to admit to that fact. So he shrugged off his years of yearning and said, "Oh, no real reason, I just thought I would come back and have a little visit with the glory days."

Another awkward, doubt-filled silence ensued. Troy quickly jumped in again. "So, do you have a free block right now? I kinda want to check out the old basketball court," he said, in which "kinda" meant "desperately." He chewed his beat up lip for a moment, but Sharpay nodded her head and off they went.

As they approached the well-worn double doors to the court, Troy grew surer and surer that she would be there. He could feel it in his soul, and there wasn't a chance it wouldn't happen the way he had dreamed.

Empowered by his heart, Troy moved to pull open the giant doors, grunting, but it was to no avail. Wordlessly, he looked back over to Sharpay, who had a puzzling look on her face. Her trademark grin from minutes and years earlier had vanished, but nonetheless, she reached over and heaved open the doors for him.

Instantly, Troy was greeted by the percussion of basketballs slamming against the ground, accented occasionally by the sweet swish of a hoop. The smell of dozens of sweaty teenage boys threatened to overtake him but inhaling it brought him right back to his high school days. But as he scanned the room, he couldn't find what he'd been looking for.

Despite the students playing the sport around him, Troy muscled his way to the center of the court as fast as he could with his cane. The rhythm of basketballs slowed down as the kids turned to stare at him, but it all faded away. Cutting above it all, he could hear his voice being called in total clarity, just as he had in his final game against West High.

"Gabriella! Where are you, my love, I can't see you, please—" His call cut off with an extended coughing fit. Troy doubled over in pain but continued to plead for his love.

"Gabriella!" he screamed.

All of a sudden, there was a light hand on his shoulder. Troy spun around, at first in shock that his dream had come true. But he fell back down to earth as he realized that it was only Sharpay.

"Troy…" Sharpay started to say before trailing off. She started again, speaking measuredly and gently. "What are you doing? Don't you remember what happened fifty years ago?"

Troy couldn't even bring himself to shake his head no. What did she mean, fifty years ago? He stood there in the center of the court, breathing heavily.

"Troy… Gabriella's dead."


End file.
